Once a year, the WWE takes fifteen wrestlers
from Raw and fifteen from SmackDown! and throws 'em in the ring together in,
what is usually, one slobberknocker of a match.

Since the very first Royal Rumble back in 17 years ago, the Royal
Rumble has been pretty entertaining match. In case you don't know, it starts off
with two men entering the ring to kick things off, and every 90 seconds a new
superstar joins them in the ring. A wrestler is eliminated when they're thrown
over the top rope and both feet touch the ground. The wrestler left standing in
the ring wins a title match at WrestleMania. However, since the match itself
only runs close to an hour, the rest of the card is filled with some matches
that don't come anywhere close to matching that excitement.

The Royal Rumble took place on January 30th in Fresno,
California. It runs 2 hours and 55 minutes, which goes by pretty quickly. Here's
the card:

Shawn Michaels vs. Edge - I
don't care much for Edge [especially in light of current events], but this wasn't that bad of a match. Shawn
Michaels is still kickin' [pardon the pun] and he gives Edge a good workin'
over. However, as I said earlier, since both gentlemen will be a part of the main event, this
spot should've been filled with two wrestlers who weren't.

Casket Match [Undertaker vs. Heidenreich] - Heidenreich really, really annoys
me. Undertaker isn't that much better. I thought this was a really lame match
that only popped once two unannounced participants got involved. Surprising even
me, since I really don't care for them either.

World Heavyweight Championship Match [Triple H vs. Randy
Orton]
- This was a good match. While there were some weak spots, they both put on a
heck of a show. Most importantly, since HHH wrestled here it means he won't be winning
the Rumble. However, that doesn't bode well for Orton, now does it?

Triple-Threat WWE Championship Match [JBL vs. Kurt Angle
vs. Big Show] - This was another good match. Just not as good as it
should've been. Show's size prevents him from doing anything too athletic,
but I like him as a personality. JBL has drastically improved since his
"Bradshaw/APA" days, but Kurt owned this match.

Royal Rumble Match
- I gotta say I marked out heavily for this match. Part of the appeal for me
was the combining of the brands and getting to see wrestlers who don't normally
interact form alliances, however temporary. There are occasional "dead
spots" where the wrestlers just seem to stand around, but this was a
pretty damn entertaining match. And the best thing about this match? If you
don't like the wrestlers in the ring, wait 90 seconds and you might get one
you do like.

The following wrestlers are in the Royal Rumble
match and the numbers in parenthesis are the position that they entered the
ring:

Raw Superstars

Chris Benoit (2)

the Hurricane (5)

Edge (7)

Shelton Benjamin (9)

Chris Jericho (11)

Muhammad Hassan (13)

Simon Dean (18)

Shawn Michaels (19)

Jonathan Coachman (21)

Viscera (23)

Gene Snitsky (26)

Kane (27)

Batista (28)

Christian (29)

Ric Flair (30)

SmackDown!
Superstars

Eddie Guerrero (1)

Daniel Puder (3)

Hardcore Holly (4)

Kenzo Suzuki (6)

Rey Mysterio (8)

Booker T (10)

Luther Reigns (12)

Orlando Jordan (14)

Scotty 2 Hotty (15)

Charlie Haas (16)

René Duprée (17)

Kurt Angle (20)

Mark Jindrak (22)

Paul London (24)

John Cena (25)

They've also included promos that were previously seen on the weekly
broadcasts to hype this event:

History Of the Royal Rumble [30s]

Casket Match

World Heavyweight Championship Match

Triple-Threat WWE Championship Match

the Story Behind the Triple-Threat WWE
Championship Match [3m 48s]

More History Of the Royal Rumble [3m 35s]

Listed as "DVD
Exclusives" are:

After the Royal Rumble

Theodore Long Offers Batista A Contract

JBL Interview Raw 01.31.2005

Video:
As usual with WWE discs, for the amount of content on the disc, this was an
pretty attractive transfer. It's
presented in the full frame 1.33:1 ratio and the picture is pretty sharp. Colors
are bright and there were only slight instances of compression artifacts.

Audio: The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound was crystal clear and enveloped my
living room while I was watching it. You're also given the option of watching
the disc in Spanish.

Conclusion: The highlight of this disc, hands down, is the Royal
Rumble match. It's a shame they didn't cut out some of the individual matches
and expand the Rumble, but I thoroughly enjoyed what I saw. It was weird that
there wasn't a women's match, but considering the way Vince has essentially
fired every single Diva that can do anything even slightly resembling wrestling,
I wasn't terribly surprised. While it's slightly skimpy where extras are
concerned [thanks to the lengthy running time], this disc gets an enthusiastic Highly
Recommended
from me.